But now, like a
confirmed invalid whom, all of a sudden, a change of air and surroundings,
or a new course of treatment, or, as sometimes happens, an organic change
in himself, spontaneous and unaccountable, seems to have so far recovered
from his malady that he begins to envisage the possibility, hitherto
beyond all hope, of starting to lead--and better late than never--a wholly
different life, Swann found in himself, in the memory of the phrase that
he had heard, in certain other sonatas which he had made people play over
to him, to see whether he might not, perhaps, discover his phrase among
them, the presence of one of those invisible realities in which he had
ceased to believe, but to which, as though the music had had upon the
moral barrenness from which he was suffering a sort of recreative
influence, he was conscious once again of a desire, almost, indeed, of the
power to consecrate his life. But, never having managed to find out whose
work it was that he had heard played that evening, he had been unable to
procure a copy, and finally had forgotten the quest. He had indeed, in the
course of the next few days, encountered several of the people who had
been at the party with him, and had questioned them; but most of them had
either arrived after or left before the piece was played; some had indeed
been in the house, but had gone into another room to talk, and those who
had stayed to listen had no clearer impression than the rest.
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